


And is it worth the wait

by FierceWingsHawks



Series: End of All Days [Season 15] [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 15, Canonical Character Death, Depressed Castiel (Supernatural), Depressed Dean Winchester, Emotionally Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt Sam Winchester, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Post-Episode: s14e20 Moriah, Pre-Season/Series 15, Selectively Mute Dean Winchester, i need to learn how to tag, kind of ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27773674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FierceWingsHawks/pseuds/FierceWingsHawks
Summary: Dean is touching his hand, caressing the back with his thumb without saying anything. His head is against his shoulder and from his position, he can see how Dean has his eyes closed. They are sitting on the floor, their back against the impala. Dean's breathing is slow, really slow. Anyone could think that he is sleeping but his thumb is still caressing his hand. He is exhausted, both of them are.Three months since God himself decided to put the plug off.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: End of All Days [Season 15] [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530962
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	And is it worth the wait

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  _  
> I was a heavy heart to carry  
>  But he never let me down  
>  When he held me in his arms  
>  My feet never touched the ground  
>  _  
> 
> 
> **[Heavy in your Arms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo1n6OTKb0k) **

And after many years, finally, _finally_ , they end up here.

Dean is touching his hand, caressing the back with his thumb without saying anything. His head is against his shoulder, and from his position, he can see how Dean has his eyes closed. They are sitting on the floor, their back against the impala. Dean's breathing is slow, really slow. Anyone could think that he is sleeping, but his thumb is still caressing his hand. He is exhausted, both of them are.

Three months since God himself decided to put the plug off. (Three months since Jack-)((Three months since Sam-)

This is the thing.

Lucifer didn't bring hell to earth. It was God.

Three hunters aren't enough to save the world; after ten years, they can accept that. But they try, they tried the exact moment those zombies and ghosts and monsters were back. They tried a week later after that, and they are still working three months after that.

The thing is that people are dying. Three aren't enough, less enough two. Because Sam, Sam is... Not with them. He is with the girls in a safe place, in bad shape. The gun was made to kill a Nephilim. A bullet to a human can be a mess.

So the _Winchester brothers_ is just _Dean_ now, and Dean... Dean is not the same.

The first week was full of shouting and blaming and mourning and killing, and then Sam blackout in the middle of hunting a wendigo. Resulting in Castiel himself getting hurt and Dean hurting his back, trying to take them to safety. Meanwhile, he kills the wendigo. When Dean came back cover in blood with a neutral face, he knew that something terrible happened. They couldn't talk about it when Sam was the priority. They bring him back to the cabin where they were staying. He didn't wake up, not the next day or the next day.

Dean wasn't panicking, wasn't ordering him to cure his brother, wasn't shouting at all. Then on the third day of Sam still without waking up, Dean touches his shoulder gently to said: " _We have work to do."_ Castiel is confused, then Claire and Jody, and the girls come to the cabin minutes later.

Jody looks at Dean really sad, and he really wants to ask, but Claire says that they should go, that there are monsters to kill. Jody nods his way, but her eyes tell him the answer he wants.

_"Dean needs this."_

He knows he should be mad, be frustrated, and say no, but Dean it's touching him again and makes him feel off.

They go out, kill, and come back. Dean touched him all the time he could but didn't say anything to him. And Cas wants to make him talk, but in the field, there is never an opportunity for that, and when they come back, Dean is in Sams's room, 'cause the younger Winchester still doesn't wake up.

There is tension in the air, but nothing happens. Jody smiles at him after one week like that and sits in front of him.

"Hey."

"Hey." Now that he notices, no one in the cabin had said more than two-sentence to each other.

There is nothing to talk about. Not when there is an Apocalypse out there and nothing normal to do anyway. Not when Sam Winchester is like a body to prepare for a funeral, one that no one wants to plan and not when their- _his_ son is still dead, and he can make himself care about anything.

"How... is out there?" Jody asks, and they both know _how_ is out there, but at least someone is trying to act normal.

"Bad."

"And how are you?"

_He doesn't know; he doesn't care._ He shrugs and looks at his hands.

"...how is Dean?" He makes his hands into fists to look at her, but she wasn't even looking at him anymore; she is looking at the closed door where Dean entered hours ago.

"I don't know," he says because he really doesn't know and doesn't know if he still cares enough to want to know.

"You both don't talk?" And Castiel looks at her with a frown.

"No." Jody is looking at him, more worried now. "Why?"

"What?"

"Why do you ask if we talk? There is no time to speak out there."

"Not here either, apparently."

"What do you mean?"

"Dean hasn't talked to us since we came." And that's- "When he called us he said in little words what happened and why the world was like it was, I ask how were all of you, and he didn't say anything else until a " _Please_ " that sound so wrong coming in that tone from Dean."

He is counting in his mind the days since that one when the girls came, and soon it will be a month, a month without Dean talking. He didn't notice... cross that, he did, but he thought Dean didn't talk to _him_. Never thought that _at all_. But maybe-

He looks at the door, and Jody obviously notices, but she is touching his shoulder now (gently, like Dean does recently-) so he can look at her, and she is moving his head.

"No, not even to Sam."

The next day he goes to listen through the door, and he doesn't hear Dean talking (he thinks he heard a sob, but why would he, Dean wouldn't-).

It's one month after, with Dean still not talking but continuing with his soft touches and dull looks and sad smiles. After a good day for them (because Rowena knows how to help Sam, finally) is when he hears in a whisper the voice of Dean on his head.

" _Thank you, Cas._ "

And he just _knows_.

When he shouted at Dean after Jody and the girls came to stay, Dean didn't react, his eyes were already dull, and his lips were in a thin line. The only thing that he heard that time was the thumbs of Dean's heart, his own erratic breathing, and something on the back of his head. _A sob_.

Now he knows it was Dean. And he didn't listen... didn't want to hear.

He doesn't lose time.

Rowena is in Sams's room, and she kicks Dean out because " _she needs to concentrate_." When Dean didn't say anything or did something against it or even show some discomfort, Rowena looked at him worried before disappearing behind the door close.

So Dean is with the Impala, trying to fix some more of her. The girls are preparing some tea for Rowena and dinner.

Jody finds him still in the hall, just thinking.

"You should go." It's not necessary to clarify what she means.

Castiel takes some air to nod, and then he goes to the garage.

He can hear the tools hit metal, but just that. No other sound. He looks at Dean in his space, doing what he knows, almost showing a smile, noticing a little spark in his eyes. One that wasn't there these two last months. He should have seen it before.

Dean was out of it those past weeks. He was in automatic mode, no feeling, no suffering. Just living... to kill.

He didn't even try to talk because _why talk?_.

Then he hears loud and clear:

**_Do you need anything?_ **

He jumps a little cause that was on his head, not out loud.

"Dean-" And when he looks at the blonde, he is looking at him already, with eyes dull again, and no smile. "We need to talk."

Dean makes a face, hear some faint **_I don't think we do_** that makes him frown.

"Yes, we do." And there is a silence that consumes the place that even he can't hear the breathing.

Dean makes a sound, a scoff at the same time that turns around and gives him his back, and that's it.

He is done.

He gives enough steps to end up near Dean so he can touch his shoulder and just turn him around.

"We are going to talk; I don't care if you don't-" His voice is lost, seeing Dean crying, in silence, but he can hear the sobs, at the back of his head. Dean is crying, and he doesn't know what to do. He never knew what to do with humans crying, and it is still a problem, but the worrisome thing of all that is that Dean still doesn't make a sound.

Something is wrong.

So his anger disappears in an instant, making him get close to Dean, and that makes the other flinch and that... That hurt, but Dean is still crying and looks like he is in pain, and he still doesn't know what to do.

He makes Dean look at him and ask if he can touch him. Dean nods without thinking too much, so Castiel ended touching his face, trying to cure him for the pain, but... There is nothing. 

He doesn't really know what happened next or how they end on the back seat on the Impala, just holding to each other.

After that, Dean still doesn't talk, but the prayers to him increase.

When he talks to Jody about it (because she worries for Dean as he does), she mentioned something about _defense mechanisms,_ and he knows it's something he should investigate. (Sam is still not well enough to talk to).

So that's their thing now.

Communicate in prayers, touches soft and gentle. He knows that if the old Dean would see himself now would call himself clingy or something worse, but he doesn't really care. He kind of likes it. Finally, Dean is being tactile with him and is not in a crisis. (Not like the actual situation is not a crisis but-)

"Dean... It's time to come back." Dean is still touching his hand, and his breathing is still calm, but in his mind can hear a sigh and: **_Yeah, all right_**

They still aren't well in any way.

They are still mourning, still trying to survive, BUT they are still trying to save the world (and each other) too.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this just after watching the finale season's clips before it really aired, so of course, it's an AU...  
> And I haven't watched it; Tumblr gave me all the spoilers I need (unfortunately, I decided to watch the finale episode live, and yeah, a big mistake on my part).
> 
> The point is that this ended up kind of OOC, and I apologize (but I got something with selective muted Dean AND just angst).  
> And yeah, why I published it until now? Well, I thought this wasn't good, but after watching the finale, I changed my mind lmao.  
> AND I'm mad at myself for not putting too much focus on Cas mourning Jack considering what happened canonically, so thinking of finish writing that one.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
